Tough Guise 2 and Dreamworlds 3

Both of these documentaries highlight varying aspects of gender exploitations. The documentary Tough Guise 2 exposes how men are gendered into becoming “real men” which has many consequences. The documentary Dreamworlds 3 exposes how objectified women are in the music video industry. Both men and women face pressures from different media outlets that have negative outcomes.

In the documentary, Tough Guise 2, we see many examples of how men must prove their manhood to the world or else they will suffer severe consequences. How does a man prove that he is man? The men in the documentary discuss how they must be tough and ruthless in order to a real man. What this all really adds up to is the encouragement of male violence. Violence seems to be synonymous to manhood. One interesting point that this film makes is that violence is not a learned behavior, but it is a taught behavior. Boys are taught from the start that they must act tough and not show emotions –they must abide by the “boy code”. Therefore, this continues on through out a man’s life- which leads to increased violent acts which ultimately leads to increased crime. Whether it is through video games or movies, the message being portrayed to boys is violence. Therefore, can we really be surprised that men have a higher rate of crime such as homicide and rape than women? Another interesting segment of the documentary is the discussion of how superheroes have changed over the year. As famous superhero movies have been redone and modernized, there is a clear trend in the transformation of these infamous roles. In modern superhero movies, the hero is significantly more muscular and bigger than older versions. Also, famous wrestlers have changed over the years. Wrestlers nowadays are completely just muscle mass, whereas decades ago, wrestlers used to have a little belly and were not as bulked up. This all relates back to the definition of manhood. These men are bigger and stronger and tougher than before. The definition of manhood is continuously changing and men. If men are expected to be bigger and tougher, this must correlate to the increasing violence among men.

Similar to Tough Guys 2, the documentary, Dreamworlds 3, highlights other gender inequalities and pressures that pertain to women. This film exposes how women are negatively portrayed in the music video industry. There were video clips of women dancing on cars, touching themselves, and crawling over men. Just as the documentary stated, the women appear to be sensual beings that can never be satisfied. There are many scenes of four or five women pulling at one man begging for his lust. Also, there are many scenes of women half dressed just dancing around. What I found the most disturbing are the scenes of money being thrown at these video girls. There was one scene in particular that stuck out to me called the “credit card” move. These different videos portray women as money-seeking, selfish beings who will do any sexual act for monetary exchange. Therefore, they are putting a price on these girls and making them all out to be objects that can be bought. This is a horrible message to be sending through mass media. Now, it is not only male musicians that are objectifying women, but it is also female musicians who have conformed to this phenomenon as well. Female singers have begun wearing less clothing in their videos in hopes to increase record sales. Singers such as Beyonce, Brittany Spears, and Christina Aguilara have all been guilty of using their bodies to lure in more profits. It is sad to see how artists such as these women have “sold out” and resorted to using their physicality to sell records rather than their talent alone.